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Saturday, November 17, 2012

Suburgatory

Suburgatory

Episode 5: The
Wishbone

By: Carlos Uribe

Suburgatory is a show about a teenage girl who is stuck in her
version of hell, the suburbs.

Spoilers
Ahoy!

The
entire first season had largely dealt with Tessa's growing issues
with not knowing her mother until it all built up to her making
contact with her grandmother. The season premiere had began with
Tessa trying her best to connect with her missing parent and it added
a layer of meaning to the theme song. That theme went to the
background but it was always there. Tessa as a character has always
been partly defined as the girl who never met her mother. It is such
a strong definition to have but it's also one that this episode
decided to change. It spent most of the episode building up to the
moment where Tessa finally meets her mom after sixteen years of
living. It starts off with a simple promise: Tessa goes to the city
in order to spend Thanksgiving with her grandmother and mother. She's
supposed to meet her mom for the first time over the dinner. When
Tessa arrives at her grandmother's building, she braces herself.
She's preparing herself emotionally and mentally for the moment where
she and her mother meet for the first time. I don't think it needs to
be stated that meeting her mother is one of Tessa's most significant
moments in her entire life. She knocks on the door and her
grandmother answers with assurances that Tessa's mom will be there
soon. The episode holds out the promise but the threat that Tessa's
mother won't show up is very much there.

Tessa's
mother doesn't show up. In an episode of heartbreaking moments, that
moment where she leaves her grandmother's apartment without having
met her mother is probably the most powerful one. It is such a sad
moment and the viewer is left thinking that Tessa's mother flaked.
That is until we see the scene of why exactly she didn't show up:
Tessa's mother knocks on George's door in Chatswin. Tessa's mom had
messed up the information and had assumed that Tessa was going to be
waiting for her in Chatswin. It was a big misunderstanding on her own
part. George is furious with Tessa's mom because she messed up big
time. When Dallas thinks that he's being too mean, he points that
Tessa's mom's irresposibility hurts a lot of people and she always
acts as the victim in order to make people forget that it's her
fault. George realizes that he has to call Tessa in order to tell
her about the mix-up. The one problem I have with the episode is that
Tessa's narration makes it seem like she doesn't know her mother is
at home and yet she addresses her mom by name when she gets there. It
just confused me a bit on whether the call got through or whether
Tessa had just guessed that her mother arrived at the wrong place.

The
entire series up to this point had built up to that one scene where
Tessa meets her mom. It's a simple scene: the mother is surrounded by
people that aren't related to Tessa. Tessa addresses all the ones she
can see before finally acknowledging her mom. This is a moment she
had built for herself up for in the beginning of the episode but the
disappointment had crushed her. Tessa escapes from the scene by going
up to her room. Tessa's mom only follows once Dallas talks some sense
into George and her. Tessa and her mother seem to connect in a pretty
good scene but the show can't help but cut to a shot of George
sitting on top of the stairs right next to the room. He can hear them
laughing and it's noticeable that he's barely keeping it together. He
claims later that he won't be an obstacle but he might not help but
become one. The Wishbone's main plot followed Tessa's emotional
roller-coaster ride when she meets her mother and it handled it just
about perfectly.

That's
not the only real drama we get in this episode. Malik is getting
perfectly well with Lisa's mother and this is bugging Lisa. Lisa
absolutely hates her mother and she's simply not happy that her
boyfriend is able to be friends with her. Malik is invited over to
the Shays for Thanksgiving and this signals the end of their
relationship. When Sheila accidentally sees a naked Malik, the two
manage to not make it uncomfortable with each other. Lisa happens to
see what happened and she's not willing to be accept it. When her
entire family backs Sheila, Lisa just loses it. She can't be with
Malik because it's like he's been accepted by the family. She claims
that it's because she can't lose the image of her mother catching his
naked body but it really ties into what that scene led to: the family
and Malik accepting it. In the act of accepting it a natural, it's as
if Malik is another member of the family. Lisa hates her family and
she can't have a boyfriend whose a part of it because she would hate
him by extension. The two break up because Malik got along too well
with Sheila.

Suburgatory
had an episode that had a lot of serious drama going on. Tessa
meeting her mother is not only an important moment for the character
but a moment that the entire show had been working towards. Lisa and
Malik breaking up is a significant plot development for both of them.
It could have been an easy episode to mess up. That the series
actually managed to knock it out of the park not only in being funny
but in the emotional department and you get an epsidoe that becomes
an instant classic. The Wishbone did so much right and so little
wrong.